 What we'll do, we'll just start off with Alderson Elliott to kind of go through the whole picture of the water infrastructure improvement project. And then afterwards we can get the state feel free to at the end of it and explain to everybody the importance of, you know, why we came to this and in the steps that the town needs to take. You know, to keep our operating license so that type of. So, so I'll turn it over to Wayne. Good evening, welcome. As Chris said, this is the second public information meeting tonight here for the Vodvo. So the Vodvo is next Tuesday, which is November 5th. It's 7, the polls are open at 7 a.m. at 7 p.m. There are absentee ballots available at the town clerk's office. You can vote at the, you know, five mil schools. So this kind of encourages everybody to get out and vote next Tuesday. So a little bit about why the project is required here. The primary vote here is it's a replacement of aging and a lot of the water pipes. And it includes automatic control of Wyoming improvements to the two existing wells and the two storage tanks. Three of the improvements in this project are required by the state of Illinois. They're necessary to maintain long-term reliability of the water system. The state issued a sanitary survey back in April of 2019. And these three items that are included in the project are required to be completed by December 2020. The first one is the replacement of the Main Street water line. The second is the Boulevard tank inspection that has been completed. And the inspection results were positive on that. There's some minor repairs, work that needs to be done on that. So the town is going to be including that in the work. And then as I mentioned, the last part of that is the automatic control of the two existing wells and the level controls for the Boulevard and the Gaco water storage tanks. So a little bit about what's included in the water system improvements. The major part of the project, which is a little bit easier to see here, is a new water line. This is a river street. It's just off the page here. This is the river. This is a church street. And then this is a Marshmallow Road up here. So about 2800, excuse me, 2500 feet of new 8-inch here, which just starts north of the intersection with River Street. It heads all the way to Main Street to Marshmallow Road. And then there's some work on the side streets. And the primary objective of the work on the side street is a lot of small, diameter galvanized water lines that are poor condition. They're off cross-country. They're not in the Boulevard right away. Pretty hard to get to. There's been some frequent leaks. So we're looking at new water lines on Liberty Stable Road and Avon Drive. Those are going to be here too much at 4-inch. Those are going to provide domestic. The water lines are going to be located within the Boulevard right away. So the cross-country line is going to be gone. They ended up eliminated and people are going to be reconnected within the right away areas. And then small diameter water lines are dense, more pushing and clippered again. The same thing to clean up the cross-country lines. Those are all going to be small diameter too much at 4-inch for domestic. Those are going to be in the public right away and everybody's going to be reconnected to those new water lines. Also, with the water line improvements, there's going to be what we call the incidentals and purposes of giving new fire hydrants, new gate valves to each of the intersections. If Tim has a leak on Main Street, he's chasing that back to figure out where he can find a gate valve that works. To shut things down. So sometimes, fairly large areas, they need to be shut down if he has a water leak. It's also going to include new water services when they're right away with curb stops. The other parts of the project here, which are a little bit easier to see on this figure, is there's work into two storage tanks. As you're coming in, this is to the east. We've got the Boulevard Storage Tank. As I mentioned, that was recently inspected. There's going to be some exterior cleaning, refinishing of that. Also, some interior cleaning and refinishing of the tank. There's going to be level controls so the town staff can automatically monitor the water levels in the tank. Same thing up here at the Geico Storage Tank. We're going to run underground power up that. There's going to be automatic level monitoring controls. Towns could have the ability to operate the wells automatically right now. They run off a timer. They really don't know how much water is the tank so this operation is going to be much more efficient, much better use of the water and also help improve the water quality in those two storage tanks. In the addition to that, there's going to be operator and sampling improvements over a year up from Pleasant Street. That's also a state requirement as part of the sanitary survey. Overall, why are the improvements required? Again, the water mains on Main Street or past are useful life. If you've seen Tim out there, he's repaired some fairly frequent leaks and that causes shutdown of service to existing businesses and homeowners. The way that the wells in the water storage tanks have been operated is somewhat inadequate so that's going to be automated again to provide the staff with more control, better monitoring. We don't want the water to sit in those tanks too long so there's going to have a lot more flexibility to be able to move the water through those tanks quicker. There's a lot of small land or galvanized water lines in the cross-country areas of Liberty Stable, A-Lon, Dent's, Warren Clifford. Those are going to be abandoned and taken out of service. Again, as mentioned, the state is requiring that the three major improvements be done. The water line replacement on Main Street, the monitoring control of the two water storage tanks and if the TAM doesn't complete those within the timeframe of the compliance schedule, they could be subject to future fines. The total bond amount is $2.8 million. We've had some recent adjustments in the total project cost. The total project cost is pretty close to $2.8 million right now because we didn't have the inspection results of a boulevard storage tank. That works pretty good, $140,000. And the TAM does want to get that included within this work and that bond authorization. The construction cost is a little bit over $2 million. Then we have a 10% construction contingency. There's engineering costs, there's permit fees, legal short-term interest. That's all part of the total project cost, total bond amount of $2.8 million. So what are the available funding sources? All the money is coming from the state. The good news is there's a projected loan amount of the $2.8 million, about $1 million, $50,000 because of the TAM qualifies for the extended term in the lower interest rate. That's going to be a four-year term with 0% interest. And then because of the higher water rates in the town and the median household income, the town also qualifies for what we call the disadvantaged subsidies. So that's $1,050,000. And that basically, the town doesn't have to pay that back. So that's somewhat equivalent to a grant moving forward. The other thing that's out there too, which is another reason why the town is pushing the bond vote in November, there's additional state subsidy that's available. That's on a first-come, first-served basis. That's 25% of the total project cost that comes right off the top. That's estimated at about $700,000. So if the bond vote passes next week, there's no guarantees. But it avoises the town a lot better to be able to also tap into those funds. The other part is too, which has just come up very recently, is because of the galvanized water lines are being replaced, taken out of service. The state is also offering additional subsidy for the last subsidy portion. So we're going to be working on that. We don't have final numbers on that. But if the town, whatever the town can become eligible for that, that's going to reduce the loan amount of the $1,050,000 that we've estimated. Projected impact on the current water rates, a typical residential water customer pays $118.35 per quarter. There's about 500 equivalent units in the town. We're projecting with the current funding package in our county. We are not counting the last subsidy portion as part of that because that's to be determined. But we're looking at an increase of about $13.12 per quarter for residential water customer. And the debt retirement, again, is on the $1,050,000. That's 0% in 40 years. If the bond loan does not pass in November, the town is still required to complete the water system improvements. They'd have to discuss whether to come back to another bond loan in March. But at this point, the compliance schedule, all the work is scheduled to be completed. The bond loan passes by the end of 2020. The other thing is if it didn't pass, that probably wouldn't qualify for this additional subsidy. But 25% of the first services to the funding package right now is very, very favorable. During the construction process, we would expect there's going to be interruptions, brief and water service. They're going to be working in certain segments, depending on the day and as we go through the summer, we expect the construction work to occur the majority of next season. So they'll start April and May out there right through November, where they're reconnecting, putting them down in the section of the water line testing. There will be brief shutdowns to local residents and businesses that will be all communicated ahead of time so that everybody can plan accordingly. And then when they're reconnecting the service, there may be a short brief shutdown. Again, that would all be coordinated with a property owner ahead of time. And the attempt is to minimize that to the extent possible. We're scheduled, if the bottle passes the design, we're approaching 90% complete. So we'll be working on the permits over the next couple of months getting the construction loan application in, getting all that in place. We're looking to be out for bid here in February timeframe of 2020 so that that could get good competitive pricing on the construction work. So the contractor would start in the spring and the work would go through the entire, right through the end of 2000, 2020. So, okay. I'm just going to have Tim bring in very briefly what we'll talk a little bit. He's from the Drinking Water Ground and I want to protect him a little bit. And so he's the guy from the state here. So that's requiring us to... Wayne, Wayne, Wayne the engineer, he just stole a lot of my funders. So you're going to hear a lot of the same things again, but hopefully I'll say it a different way. Tim Raymond. Again, I'm with the state of Vermont Drinking Water Division. My function with the Drinking Water Division is I oversee the technical, financial, and main jail viability of community drinking water systems. I've been in the state of Vermont with the drinking water program for 32 years. I first became aware of that while immediately following hurricane agony August 28, 2011. And I first hand became aware of some of the difficulties that not just F-O, but many water systems have when they're challenged by storm events at that time. We've been working with the local town officials since that time on trying to increase the technical, financial, and managerial viability of the community water system. One of the things that we recently engaged the town on was something called the asset management program. Asset management is really just a way of recognizing what your assets are and when you need to plan to replace things before they fail. Unfortunately for the town of Bethel, the water distribution system is agent and it's really out of this usefulness. There's quantity and quality issues of concerns. It means there's insufficient flow and pressure to really serve the users of the system, especially under a fire flow event if the community would have a fire in the downtown. So we requested through a number of sanitary survey inspections, but in this last April, we conducted a sanitary survey inspection. It resulted in a list of recommendations. The community was working with their consulting engineer to address those recommendations and we developed a, what we call a schedule of compliance through the water systems operating permit. The operating permit does require that the water distribution system be addressed and that the controls for the tanks be addressed along with some minor improvements for the storage tanks. It does stipulate a compliance deadline by December of 2020. If anybody has any questions, wants to talk more about those types of things, I'm sure this is absolutely the place that we're going to do it. Thank you. This is a question that comes up. So to be very clear on the ponder next week, the entire town votes, the debt retirement and the water system improvements is paid back by the water system customers. So even if you live in the town, unless you're connected to the water system, you aren't going to be paid for the water system improvements. So was it your company that did the estimating? Yes, that's correct. So the town doesn't have who the construction people are? No, they'll go out to bid in a spring with the contractors and that has to be publicly bid. I'll say so if I have a couple of things. First, so if the water user or the water subscribers, I'm a little unclear how it is that they can put the bill for this whole thing when it's the town, all the town residents that are deciding whether or not it happens. In my head, I'm kind of thinking like a good example is school taxes. I don't have any kids, but I still pay school taxes. Why is it that the people that aren't hooked to the water system but are still members of this community aren't being asked to pay their way? Well, like Tim or anybody else can jump in at any time, but my point of view on that is when we first started this process, I'd say almost a year ago when we were kicking around these big numbers of upgrading the system and we're really looking at like that $2.83 million cost to the town boy, how are we going to make this work? Obviously, if we had to fund $2.8 million just straight out that we would need input or we'd need responsibilities from both identities to pay for it. So it would be the end water user as well as the taxpayers. Instantly, I was kind of thinking if we could get to a 50-50, that would be like a win. On the tax population and 50% of the water users. But as we came through the process and were able to look into some of the revenues that are available to the project quickly it became that $2.83 million has made its way down to $1 million and it couldn't even go lower than that. So at that point we were able to look at the water customers themselves on taking this responsibility. Because right now and even though we have had increases in the last three years in the water system which I would say are significant based upon the history of the water in the town. We still pay in this town on average less than the majority of others in the state of Vermont. So even though less locally we were paying less than $80 a while ago and now we're paying $118. It's a drastic increase to us but if you look at the averages throughout the state of Vermont they range from anywhere from $60 to $180 to $200 a quarter. So we're still even with putting this package together and having the water system users pay for themselves we're still well inside the range I guess you'd say of water responsibility for the users. So at that point it's an easier sell to the it's an easier sell to the public by having the water workers take it on than it is to ask for everybody to take it on. Guarantee if let's say we were in this situation and the state is saying you guys have until the end of the next year to get this done and we're sitting here with a $2.8 million amount with nothing no subsidies another thing that we don't talk about on this is we have about $1.8 million coming off the top here to start and it could get better than that but we're also not paying interest. There's a savings there you start thinking 1, 2, 3% on $2.8 million so there's that savings as well but right now we feel right now that the increase would be a very modest increase for the customers to be able to absorb we hope that by having the new system entailed that they'll create efficiencies for that water system that in the next period of time once we get the new operating system in there'll be some efficiencies that the water uses will be able to take advantage of as well so feel free to talk about anything else about it Part of it too is obviously because we are looking at such a great package from the state part of it is obviously we're going to get a lot of pushback from residents that are not on the water system. I've already fielded several phone calls where people were confused about how the bomb was going back into 12. My welcome guys you're not coming up here that type of thinking so certainly because we felt that the water system could manage the cost that was obviously one of the bigger reasons because we are in a time crunch not only to get the things correct from the sanitary survey but to take advantage of this money that's available we have to pass that bond vote so at any time you have to get full identities it becomes a harder sell so after looking at the well we first started looking at the figures six months ago maybe about six months ago I was actually surprised that I'm a water user I'm on the waterline last one on Pleasant Street and I was actually very surprised because I thought off the top that my water needs to probably go up 25 bucks a quarter and we're going to have to get the non water users to ask for a piece of this you know and then to have it come in and we're looking at less than 14 bucks and it could possibly go down depending on how much galvanized we get one for one trade on it's a good deal all around so I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about as I said in the last time I'm really worried about the length of time that this project is going to take so can you talk about if there have been any I guess you call them incentives that are built into this for the construction company to complete this project in a timely manner well there's incentives adverse incentives if they don't there's going to be things built into the contract that they need to get from point A to point B down to a certain time and so I know what I want to write the Vermont community development met here today and I spoke to Richard and he actually gave me a contact at usdard apparently there's two times a year about getting money for downtown and it's not a capital but it's money for advertising and things like that so I should have some information on that tomorrow but as far as what's your experience with do you expect this project to go from May 1st to October 31st or do you have some so you obviously have more of a historical knowledge than I do so yeah the whole project really it's entirely going to be under construction for that duration now keep in mind it's working a lot of different locations here that's not to say that the contractor is working over here to run power to the stores when they're working on Main Street they're going to be working in kind of short hours every day so there'll be some temporary disruption in the business where they are but they're not going to be on Main Street the whole summer they'll be kind of working their way and impact the businesses individually as they go they probably won't have more than one crew so they'll be digging the waterline once they get that backfield and there'll be some other work that's going to come through with kind of a roadway surface restoration but they're going to have to maintain a minimum of one way traffic through here too that's going to be a mosque because we can't you know limit that and then the other thing is we have a state requires we have a resident pension here on site which is really the contractor so he's working between the contractor and the town's agent so one of the things that's really important with that is he can be a real advocate for businesses and all that stuff just to make sure that next week and typically what happens is they're meeting on site on a weekly basis so the contractor is saying okay next week I'm going to be here so try to communicate with different property owners business owners as to the extent possible there will be some disruptions you know they're digging right down the middle of the downtown H3 area but you know just trying to make sure this good communication all the way around and try to believe and minimize that to the extent we can and also just to piggyback on that you know typical projects like this because I've been involved in many of them is you know once the project gets going you know the contractor is going to continue to put out there you know one two or three week lookaheads of building the project for the public and that usually goes through the resident engineer as well as the resident engineer will probably be working with threes on saying you know can we put this can we put this out to to the public letting them know that you know next week they're going to be working in this area so you know it may or may not impact your business for that week but others can plan around okay it's going to be in front of the same one shop so you know how are we going to move deliveries in and out you know that kind of thing so you know allow some of that communication to take place they do any night time work it's not been a possibility or not probably not they can you know we will require that occasion the challenge there you know the state has obviously a lot more than that the primary objective there is just to analyze the disruption really drives the concept you know that's a tough thing you know I know hype work is hard sometimes on occasion they'll have to do that they're making a connection and they actually prefer to do that on hours of night or maybe on the weekend a ditch a back lawn all that kind of stuff and then you think about just people that are living along the street you know the noise and all that stuff in the on-vow or so I think it's something that people are looking at a lot more but you know there's some pros and cons in that like you know there's everything else I know one other thing that we had that we had identified at the last meeting and the meeting before that which was the select board meeting was talking about there'll be some there'll be some rooms that people which will be trying to fly around town you know going up Sand Hill and down around the Boulevard are probably one of them making sure that we have have something put into the bid package to talk about maintenance in those roads that may see a higher volume of traffic during those peaks because obviously probably a lot of us that live around here will find other ways to move around town and you know usually the delivery trucks and the avicators won't they'll have to come through Main Street still but you know getting taking care of some of the maintenance costs for Sand Hill and P. Vine Boulevard and those that we can make sure it's maintained that way the town doesn't have to do it I mean it's clearly it's going to be an inconvenience you know not going to sit here and tell you that you're not going to be inconvenienced because you are everybody that everybody between you know the feet place and Bethel Mills here is going to be inconvenienced at some point if not periodically throughout the summer but we also have to kind of take this into perspective that you know this is a water system that once it's put in there it should last as we were talking last time around 80 years so this is a once in a lifetime event that's going to happen to your resident or your business in this area and you know as long as we can come together and get through this it's not an event that we're going to have to see again the events that we do see quite better right now is Tim out there digging a hole in the street and then telling cockatoos that they can't run water for the next three days you know those are the events that we're used to seeing in town that maybe don't cause a major disturbance to a business but it's off it's a small disturbance frequently you know that we're seeing a lot of so and this we'll also take care of the curb stop water shut off issues that we have in this town as well with either if there was a break half the time we can't find the curb stops the records in the town we can't find them or they've been paved over they're not there or they've been abandoned or if a you know something happened we had to shut water off to a building if it wasn't a break we don't know where they are or a lot of times we have to shut one off now it affects other businesses you know if you had to shut one off for this business it might affect the other two businesses so that'll hopefully address that issue as well there's a couple of good things that are coming up I mean we've been approached and I think I mentioned that's a business that was actually said this is great I need to do some maintenance inside so I'll shut down for a few days needed fire protection so that's gonna make his life a little easier so there have been some other positive things that will come out of it but again you know we're still you know I'm not talking to businesses and trying to think of ways that we can help with the town you know advertising and just like you said you know letting people know that Bethel's open for business so um does this in the future relate to any of the other ones and will North Road or any of the other areas of town need major water lines fixed and stuff like that some of them I mean I know that there's Graham and yeah this isn't going to be the cure all for everything but the remaining projects will all be manageable out of our annual budgets they'll be planning moving forward to address that yeah yes so we have a lot of questions in the last especially last week on other parts of the water system that aren't being done in this current plan and what the stages are for those and Tim feels at this point well one this is kind of the larger project because it needs to get done during this period of time and we felt if we added anything else to that we wouldn't be able to get it done inside the time frame that we need to get it done as well as the cost is that much more extra cost on the end users where we feel if we stick to our annual budget with some of the other jobs that we can do on an annual basis that we'll be able to include that our normal annual budget and hopes that they won't have to increase your water usage rates for those other future smaller projects why I ask that is because we had a bowl of water recently in North River in Hill up in that area so I didn't know if those those lines it was just sometimes what has happened that was a perfect example of us needing to make a repair further down but because there were no other shutoffs so you're shutting down the majority of the system when it really was unnecessary if all the proper gate valves were installed so that's one thing that this will rectify too is help cut down on that I mean why not a question I forgot maybe you answered and I forgot to ask you again just because we're rolling in a budget season and I can remember if there was like a warranty period and how the first loan payment and just trying to remember how that rolls out been a while so there's a restriction on that so basically so it's there complete construction and everything late next fall there's a 12 month warranty period so that's going to extend in 2021 that's on everything no paving service all the very work and then basically that first loan payment will start about that point where you said one year after the substantial completion okay that's what I wondered I remembered that the USDA funding there was but I didn't think there was a state and I couldn't remember it used to be two years with substantial completion but it just changed that one then the last year too so it's one year okay perfect that first loan payment they do about the same time towards the end of 2021 okay perfect I just was starting to work on budget season and I was like oh I forgot to ask that's a very important question sorry perfect great and one thing we've talked about at the other meetings nobody's question on it now but you know a lot of the infrastructure we have in this town is aging and we have not done the proper maintenance schedule of these utilities so we're faced now to have to do larger larger fixes right now than smaller gradual schedule fixes and really you know the town should be here having to figure out a way to come up with $2.8 million really I mean in a lot of ways we're pretty lucky in the way that we the town had been trying to address some of the water issues here over the last couple years plus when the water survey went through we've had this forward motion in town about getting through this project to the point right now we're ready to go almost ready to go to bid and now we now there's some really good grand revenue streams that have come through the state of Vermont and others so we are in a very good position to get a majority of this paid for which I think any of us sitting here two years ago we've been saying you know Clintus is a big bill and you know we're going to have to eat $2.8 million over 40 years and now we're thinking that it may be a third of that so that it's very important right now like they were saying you know a positive bond vote means that we're going to be able to maximize the revenue that's available to us a negative bond vote means we still have to go forward with a project we just may have to come up with some more money ourselves and when that happens we may have to look into other funding which means we might have to open it up to you know the non water users to have to chip in if we lose substantial pieces of this revenue that's coming in so because right now if we have a negative bond vote we probably wouldn't be able to do anything again until like March or so and by that time you lose that on two critical things you lose that on the 25% revenue piece that's there right now on a first come first work basis which isn't guaranteed but we you know we're one of select municipalities that have almost a project you know a shelf project ready project to go so you have the potential of losing that but but you also have the ability of you know that's my train of thought now but yeah that's lead subsidy the lead subsidies piece which is just coming about which we can take a benefit that we're going to have to do at some point now we can just kind of include it into this contractor later in the season and if we bid there's a big difference between bid in February when contractors are hungry for work then it is to you know if we do a bond vote in March which means we don't go to bid until like June July and then they're saying and then what would happen at that point if we did go to bid is you would have a two year construction season so you would have impact to the downtown in the late summer and fall and then the next year to do the project plus the chances are contractors don't know different anything else contractors get full the prices go up you know they raise and then the price of the project demonstrates you've talked about water meters in the past this doesn't include putting water meters right no this doesn't include any water meters yes are you getting a sense that there's any opposite I would you know we've been actively fielding all kinds of different feedback I would say overall the feedback has been positive you know I personally and you know I fielded a few pieces on you know why we chose to go with the water users as being responsible for payment on the end you know we fielded a lot of questions in regards to you know what happens to the pieces of the water system that currently isn't on the table for plans which we've been talking about you know doing that through our annual budgets and then you know and then we do field a few of the calls of you know I live in a certain area where the water system doesn't impact me why should I come out and go which has been clearly what we've been telling people is you know it may not impact you now but if it's not a positive on board it could come back to impact you at this point so it's very important that everybody comes out to vote so I mean right now my feeling is that there won't be a lot of people coming out to vote on it but overall it seems positive and we have had we've been lucky we've had some snow birds and they've all come in to vote before they're going forward or going wherever else they're going so yeah we have fielded a lot of questions in absentee ballots and absolutely and they are available so yeah we made it right after you know right after the lawyer can look at the answer so no I feel like anything we've heard overall is positive people aren't excited about having the downtown torna but they know what the necessity is couldn't be any worse than the project we just had oh yeah right it was a state project clearly not the town of Bethel it was a state one but yeah exactly yes we've fielded a lot of complaints about that but if we look at the town of Bethel and we look back over the last like 10 years in Bethel a majority of our infrastructure has been improved in the last 10 years I mean we start based on the church street bridge here that was done I think just about 10 years ago that kind of kicked off the movement in this town and the way the state likes to do their cycles they kind of come in they hit an area and then 15 years later they come back to you and the church street bridge was done 10 years ago the river street bridge was just done 107 was done route 12 through downtown was done 12 going to Randolph has been done and now you know the 107 up to the interstate so well we are in the bridge the bridge out on north 12 is being done so I mean really look at it we're pretty fortunate a majority of our infrastructure is new and new is exciting especially if you're in a business where you require tourists to come in and visit your shops because people don't want to drive through a bumpy road or over old crickety bridge and now if we could just get that ugly wall fixed it would be awesome and then to piggyback on that with some of the successes of the village with different grants and things that we've been able to take advantage of on the map and I would say there's a lot of reasons why we get grant money right now it's because there's a lot of eye about the Bethel other questions anything Tim that you want to interject I don't think this is going to really think it's not going to be a lot bigger than one of the projects we do now really when we're doing a repair except they're going to be reaching out for probably 20, 30 feet it's going to be it's not so much no I know but you and I have talked about it's the perception of being a barnard and stalkers and blockers and I have some ideas about yeah I'm not at all worried about the ditch in front of myself I'm worried about the little lady in the barnard who thinks that the traffic goes all the way to the high school every single day I'm grading them out this year local businesses if you have any suggestions or ideas feel free to this is the opportunity this period right now where we haven't gone to bed so there's still some chances to put in some things in the bed about completion dates or sense of times you know those types of things that we can put in the contract not work during this time 8 to 5 yeah you got that they won't be working until 8 to 5 in the morning they won't be working but there is some opportunity and Teresa has been reaching out there to see if there are any type of revenue sources to help the downtown businesses and through either advertising I've talked with a lot of my peers and just for your authentication I don't think any of us are worried about like in my case I'll just speak for myself I have plenty of credit with all my suppliers I'm not at all worried about that and I think it's pretty much the same way with my peers so we're not but none of us are expecting right we're just looking for money for advertising and kind of keep those ideas and some fresh ideas and I will say by talking to you know residents I've talked with Sandwich Shop and I still need to go to talk to Cockadoodle and Babes but people you know some of the businesses themselves have had some great ideas about changing it up a little bit in their own business to accommodate this and maybe it won't be open for breakfast but you'll be open for dinner so people are doing some box thinking which is great but any ideas you have certainly on the town obviously and I've said this before and we're going to say it again is we're certainly planning to do some advertisement ourselves on behalf of just let people know that Bethel is open for business and maybe there's a way to we can reach out to we can reach out to Rochester, Barnard and to different clerks offices and stuff and do that as well from porch forum that sort of thing too and we'll work with the engineer contractor in regards to making sure that things are open for business in the off hours like parking, pedestrian accessibility, things like that that comes with construction we'll lose parking spots during the day time but maybe we can regain them in the night time so just to show up hands of who came here tonight just to hear about the water upon information alright oh okay alright from last time if you have any other further questions feel free to reach out to Threes or Jim there's no white stuff out there so we're good now you've talked about when you came in wanting to put some signs I do I'd like to try to get one address for the different processes for emergency services but I'll also ask Kelly she's fat I think on Friday like on November 8th and maybe kind of eat that part-time but definitely reach out to her because she's the she you know that will take her six minutes because she has the right math and she can do it all for you like you said getting close addresses and so yeah just reach out to her and she can help you with that for sure Alex I think that's a great idea I'll get eight no she has signs all the time I didn't know if he knew what those were I don't know but she can do it because we have 9-1-1 they have a great website the state does and I fumble about but she can click click and then she has it so she can kick them out for you I think that's a terrific idea it would help if any of you know years ago I saw one address that was just a mess trying to get emergency services out coming here yet no one had so they're trying to get out of Rochester yeah I think that's a great idea I'm right inside but it's great because they put him on the stake and then if people are interested they can look at the stake and see where you know how to get people there it's a great idea so everything's changed from last year we have the math we have the math so I think you just need to make a motion yeah so I would I would entertain a motion to allow the snowmobile club to have permission on the downloads for the 2019 and 20 season second all in favor very good thank you and I was going to ask if you would sometimes come by office and ask about relating to your basement let me know what's in the building I know what's in the building it's scary all right all right so that would be great I really appreciate it we're just yeah okay yeah just let me come back because I'd love to have you over here with me please we don't know where to find them so thank you that'd be great okay that'd be great yeah let me know if there's any information you give us would be excellent and then I'm done check it out all right thanks all right seven o'clock but Rebecca you want to you guys all set the door you want to sit around you will I'm Rebecca this is Josh Roe we're here to talk to you all about the working community's challenge which is a new grant program open in the state of Vermont right now so this is actually a camp for the Bank of Boston if you're like me you had no idea they did that sort of thing for communities but they have been doing a lot of work out of their community development arm to boost economic development community revitalization especially programs that really benefit low and moderate income people so they've started these programs which were first held the working of cities challenges in Massachusetts they expanded to Revival in Connecticut did some programs there and this year have been partnering with Vermont so this is really their first test to try this type of grant in a rural northern New England state it's a pretty exciting opportunity so the way the program works is they are asking communities to pair up or work together statewide if you're a large enough community with more than 6,000 population you could go it alone any smaller than that you have to be part of a team they do a first round for communities to come together as a team or collaborative and apply for planning grants that grant would be up to $15,000 and that would be available in the spring to really come together as a group of community or teams to talk about what a really great project would look like to improve collaboration around economic revitalization and helping people they will then pick three out of the six who receive planning grants $15,000 over 3 years for implementation so there's no actual match requirement on this one this is not one where we have to work over and help develop ourselves pretty exciting opportunity and they're really looking for thinking picture innovative cutting edge ideas they're looking at communities putting their hands together to figure out how to creatively make it done in these really big systemic community issues looking for opportunities like this you've all been really supportive of trying creative interesting things in Bethel and bringing in some outside funding and this is a fascinating opportunity to work with other communities so they actually identified a set of priority communities in the state one of those priority communities must be on the application Bethel is not one of them but Randolph and Burlinton are so it's been really fun to talk with Josh about what a collaborative like I'll pass it to you do you want to talk a little bit about what you're thinking and where this is coming from Randolph? when I first started this program back in July I think you had a soft rollout knowing that minimum population would be 6,000 Randolph would be the population of 6,000 so a regional approach is what I designed with the communities around Randolph and so a regional approach is what I think we're working towards Chelsea, Rochester Randolph, Braintree, Brookfield Bethel you've been to other communities out there feeling that Burlinton and Tumbridge will also join us and I've heard Hancock, Randolph Stockbridge also but this is an opportunity to effect change we're really looking for systems change how do we provide more opportunities for low and moderate income individuals what are the changes that we need to make whether that's childcare, affordable housing skills development skilling up the workforce so many employers in this area cannot fill all of the positions that are available because of a number of things but a lot of them tend to be individuals not having the proper skills this is the planning like Rebecca said six months next year those six communities or six applicants getting the funding will have about six months to develop their plan to work together there will be a core team of about eight to twelve people and the whole collaboration can involve much more people than that but the core team will be about eight to twelve and that's not my decision but that's the same during that planning process the Fed will convene those core teams and provide technical assistance so the Fed will bring their expertise and help these individuals and communities develop their plans for implementation after that process two to three communities or applicants teams will be selected to receive those implementation funds and then those funds will probably start in September of next year and their three year commitments are $1000 a year and their experiences in southern England those communities that were selected those funds were utilized to hire human talent to help those communities see those plans that they had developed to fruition and all the communities around here we're just so understaffed we don't have enough capacity to work on all of the projects that all of our communities need to work on and it's so critical right now and so this is a great opportunity for rural New England to see how it can impact our community so I'm hopefully Bethel would like to participate in this collaboration and I said that getting selected for buying is very important to do such a thing did you mention to me a letter from 10th and I guess my question is I mean I think it's a great idea and certainly have seen in our hiring Chris works for a large company and I think that I'm certainly interested personally in the town because we're having a hard time it's kind of a unique opportunity because obviously we have a school here but Randolph has a great technical center and then you have VTC so does the select board if obviously they agree to do a letter to 10th how does the select board get a say in what they want to see happen is there something done in the letter to 10th is that just in who they pick to participate and then obviously once you get rolling you get what you get but I think that obviously you have a struggle because unlimited is so low but I'm just curious how the select board gets there yeah well I think it involves like individuals in each community you're going to have those really dying supporters and so because of the regional approach we're looking at possibly a 10-12 town sort of consortium and so I mean we can't have every select board member from every town on the table no I just met and Jeff is it something you want to see in their letter of intent or do you just want it to be vague and then we discuss this with as the process goes how do we get input I guess in my question the letter of intent is 50 words right so it's very small I kept it pretty broad I put about a lot there in more target towns so as student member first I intend to submit that either today or tomorrow or Thursday or Wednesday and you know as I imagine it working with our third partners like Gifford VTC Tech Center Capsule Community Action all the partners that we feel have better stakeholders in this type of work I would like there to be I would like them to be at the table and much of the work that we did over the Randolph region we energized initiative from Vermont Housing and Rural Development where we had task forces and then those chairs from the task forces then were like that core team I imagine a bunch of that would be structured in the same way Excellent, well that's great to know I was thinking about it after you called and then talked to Rebecca and I had given a slight worth of working cities kind of an overview of it and put in their packet and then chatted I was just curious about how it would all roll out but obviously I think it's done But you'd be looking at multiple areas you talked about childcare housing and not just training skilled workers focusing so I was actually just looking at some of the projects they funded in other states today I scrolled through them some of them are quite narrow some focused on the one neighborhood and we're really focusing on the employment gap between that and the rest of the city some are much broader focusing on general access to resources and information and opportunity or looking at a combination of three factors that are important there was one I really looked at childcare and food access well I know I hear about childcare you know in my area here so I think in terms of the timing the letter intent doesn't require any specialist to make sure it's changing it makes sense for the 20 do I have that right? 1110 do remember first and then the actual grant applications do December 13 what was the first meeting you scheduled for? for next November 6 okay so first up is trying to get it together there was a ball of these three meetings for our first conversation you know what's going on in each town what are the needs we each see what could be that focus area I did speak today with Gary Holloway Department of Housing and Community Development and asked you know this is a short amount of time to try to get a group of towns on board with one focus area could we really focus on that in the planning phase and to say well you really need to have some sort of focus at least so I think it will be open to really robust planning processes so we can do a good job on that and make that much more of a collaborative effort to really shape a project but we'll have to have some sort of focus by December so Lindley was that something I'm trying to remember the emails between Rebecca and yourself and Josh is that something that you would would you be able to attend I can't do that meeting but it may be at the Arno Block to be decided so that I am planning to attend that meeting and sort of get a feel for what's going on and is that something you'll stay in that process most likely not as one of the top people core group but that I would certainly stay up with what's going on and I would imagine that someone within the sphere of either the Arno Block or BRI we're sort of all interconnected in that way of constantly communicating with one another about initiatives so I have a feeling that yes is that something that you're interested in doing and being that I'm happy to be we did discuss it at BRI and BRI was excited about the idea and glad to support it I also mentioned it to the principals of the school and they're interested in the idea so especially for these first planning meetings Josh is hoping to have two people from each town I would be glad to be one with them I'm going to be excited about it I'm happy to also be one Yeah even the Fed is one language if you read through all the material they understand that they're looking for applicants that has 6000 population well there's so many from my community that have less than that so even with the six towns in this consortium that population is only about 11,500 and they're used to implementing this type of program in southern where their minimum population is 35 so it's the scale is so much different so they understand how do you ask the regions to meet those minimum population requirements it takes a lot of towns, a lot of people and so that planning phase is going to take a little bit longer because there are instances where you're working with a town, working with groups that have never ever communicated right, sure there's some flexibility, they understand even by the application date in December plans are going to have a framework but not everything's going to be worked out so that's for the six months next year is really going to shape it all up I certainly think it was a great idea and I think it was when we emailed first and then Josh called and then we were able to get the information I read through it and I think any opportunity for economic development and bringing somebody in is a great idea you know the board, Mo and I are the last two from the original board but we've always been behind trying new things and anything with a grant with any type of possibilities is always a good thing looking through this, I guess some of the concerns I would have is we had some challenges here it's not like a suburb of a city or a large town where you can hone in on to one segment of your town you're talking about six different identities that have not only all their own challenges and voices but also geographic challenges you know how in the state of Vermont where you get across the mountain range you get to each town and you know just going from whatever, Randolph the Rochester or from Rochester to Chelsea there's those challenges there so how do you come up with a project that all six identities can take part in it in some ways I just kind of feel like there's probably the opportunity that some of these identities lose out somehow it might be more focused on at the end of the day it might be more focused in one area and not so much the other one you know what I mean because it's six identities but I think to some of us all have the same challenges we all have a challenge for child care we all have the same challenge for skilling up the workforce and housing and I know for a while the virtual mom was focusing on a low income housing joining worker housing because that was a big thing in the prior town we were trying to focus on that as well something that wasn't low income but was still affordable and there's always been me obviously for that so I think in some ways what you're right I mean you have Branch, Trady, Brookfield and Bethel I mean I would just be interested to see what project comes out of it and how all the communities can be involved in that project especially when they are separated by 20 miles and mountains in between how that looks like and then Therese at that point is not that the board wants to weigh in on it but once you pick a project obviously that project is going to impact the communities in one way or another likely for the good but you know sometimes there are projects that are started that don't get finished but how does that impact see our community here you know at what point in the process do we get a say on you know yes we want to go forward with this or after we sign off on this is it just you guys take it and go with it take a thing I would think this less as a development of one project per se so we have a lot of communities involved that we're trying to get into the regional application we all have very similar challenges but $300,000 is really a drop in bucket $100,000 a year it's very minimal so look at it as those resources can utilize can get the human capital that we don't already have so for instance my conversations with VTC they don't have a grant writer on staff because they don't have enough funds to hire someone for a half-time person well in education institutions like that you can't just hire a half-time grant writer like they want a full-time employment so if some of the funds were utilized to help get a full-time grant writer that person might be able to focus on all of the communities and their specific needs for grant writing purposes so those are conversations that I already had it's a possibility but look at it like that it's not just like we're going to develop one project or one community that might be utilized for the whole region but we all have individual needs and maybe this town over here is different from this town but they need similar help so we can find those consultants that can help them or do childcare differently as a region share the services maybe there's a way that municipalities can talk about things going further that can help them stay money in the long run so something like that I know it's hard to look at it and that is just like freaking more the project but that's how I approach university but I think your right to be human capital is a big thing municipalities are generally we do a lot with a little and so you're right and I totally understand what you're saying it makes sense if you can bring somebody in but you can't afford a full-time grant you just can't they have you so that's great you're ahead of the brisk of battle so it's terrific but I like the idea of what you're saying because I had some of the questions like Chris did but now that you're putting it in the perspective of human capital it makes it a little more understandable and achievable I am the only economic development profession in all the communities and so this right now is a priority community and so I am here and I want this to happen it's in my best interest for it to happen helping other communities is part of that and so I see it as a regional I don't see it as just like Randolph we're the second most rural part of the state we need to have some collaboration on a regional scale we stop that we need I think it's true we're bringing people to Bethel they're easily going to go to Randolph or vice versa so I think it's true I think that's a great point I think that's a huge part of it one of their major goals is opening the door to collaboration and communication so they're actually basing this program on some pretty interesting studies like interesting though and boosting a local economy in some post-industrial cities is strong bond with leadership and building actions between people building shared information channels sharing solutions so that it's not one pocket over here planning a nice solution and I think that's the kind of thing that really could help this region it's more of a matter of value and I think they do that better than any other part of the state it really helps them they save money town by town because they're collaborating and sharing resources and sharing out individually how they handle things they do something as simple as getting their road crews together for donuts a few times a year so they can each talk about how they're handling the increased blood pressure so any number of possibilities could come out but to your other customers about when and how aboard we did there are probably several points so if you're all in favor of joining the letter of interest that involves no commitment really but if that will decide it to back out in the next month we could we could come back before the application goes in in December and talk to the board about what the focus area is looking like at that point if you want to provide it before then we are going to have a couple of planning meetings literally it will be a representative that sounds like we can sort of pass into those about the Johnston concerns do you think should be priorities from the board level and then if we did join that application and we're selected as one of the planning communities we'd really have all spring to get creative about how to have some great conversations in the region about what's needed and how to shape the project a lot of opportunities there I personally think it's a great idea I mean we're better together than we are separately good stuff in the right direction certainly in the planning stage at this point but I think we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by supporting the or at least at this phase it would be interesting to see you know down the road after you come back with some more ideas about the actual planning part yeah have you gone to the other communities any of the other communities and any kind of feedback from them for your treaty Brookfield they're very interested Brookfield has been participating in some of our three task force meetings and they've been aware of this program for at least six weeks and Rochester is also interested tomorrow night I'll be the Chelsea Sleper meeting talking with them about it they have shown interest so far so it's the same thing as but tonight I'll be doing that in Chelsea of course my office voted to partner with these communities also yeah I think it's really interesting to have the opportunity to think outside the box and do some really creative regional collaboration so is that what you're looking for in this slide board to vote so that there's something in their minutes that says that you have that they have agreed to partner with the other town it's your chance alright I would move to support the letter of intent for the working communities challenge grant thank you thank you thank you all for being on my support you've been a tough and so game to let us try to make sure we do pass along any ideas about direction thank you thanks for coming in it is it really is it's a beautiful job kind of carry over to the last meeting we had the approval of two new members to the conservation commission and last time we had decided to table it based upon that there was no letter of interest for the parties to stay with their formal process we have received I believe we all have got one letter of interest I got the other one that says that she got the other letter today William Chris you have the terms from Mary so I would entertain a motion to move forward with the approval of two members the conservation commission the first one being Danny Dover your term and then Chris for the two-year term so all in favor we have the operations and maintenance agreement for grant purchases looking higher at your lead blower yeah it's funny to look at the bottom all the things they want this is part of it is basically that you are certifying that we purchased it and that we commit to maintaining the equipment according to manufacturer's specifications so we have to attach all this stuff you see items one to five that were in your packet I guess I was just confused cause we I thought we had made a motion you have made a motion for them to go well this is saying this is another one this has been saying that not yes you've made a purchase and for the grant but this is you saying that you are certifying that we will maintain the equipment you might want to get the boys in here you make him sign on the line I'm going to make him sign that's right I don't know if that lets it be part of my house we'll let them know but that's the deal in order to get to our reimbursement that's what we have to do so I would entertain a motion to allow trees so we have to sign for the grant of acceptance although it is a second all in favor here you go trees so that's done trees alright I like it alright select four meeting minutes of 24 which is really the 21st what? oh you're right oh thank you we're still off huh we can't get it together that's right and I think we've earned at 755 as opposed to 655 okay if we go down to 655 alright I'll fix that thank you was there anything else on it how was it? okay I would entertain a motion to accept a meeting minutes as amended second all in favor aye there was meeting minutes in there for the federal planning commission I guess it's nice to see that that they have some attendees now I think for a while they were like a group of two if I remember right well they're still not though these guys are still from other places they're still visitors they're still larger that's true do we have when's the last time we've taken out any advertisements in regards to you know a list of oh in the newspaper I don't know I think Kelly had done it before she left but I'll have to do another one yeah because it's not just the planning commission no planning commission right committee was committee three I think yes it is I think they've bested up to four on the right page they have LA Shane DT right so just oh we have to four well I mean a healthy committee is usually five or six oh exactly so planning what about the visioning committee is that still I don't know I didn't know conservation she's done pretty well conservation was pretty full energy committee they got a couple and I'm not sure about the what about your DRV they're pretty good they're still got one two four okay I'll put out a little planning wasn't there one in here for the energy committee I feel like I saw something that Jose had put in right well they're seeking members there's also the town committee and they seem like I think they normally have yeah I think they have a couple more that have been there so some question on the town committee town meeting committee so they're looking at putting together an 80 or 90 page publication yeah they actually aren't just they're almost done so is that funded through the budget through the general fund no they've just been working on it forever it's something that they had asked us if we could link it to our web page and how we could do that I have not been approached yet about printing it or anything like that because it is a sizeable document Rick will talk to Spalding Press about the cost of printing it in the minutes yeah so I'm not sure maybe once he does that he'll come with price to talk about I'm not sure I'll never attend to their meetings I'm not sure we're there thinking of certainly linking it because we had talked about even as I was talking about you know a letter like welcoming people and she said this was what that you know for sure I'm not sure the intent was going to be to mail it to every new resident that moved in or just kind of make it available their intent was just more of a I mean they're calling it an operator's manual Bethel Operator's Manual the how to's of living in Bethel right so it might be nice if we even even if we do a welcome letter to new residents when they move in the town clerk gets that from the PTR we could always include a link to it since it's going to be on the website to say hey here's that they've been putting a lot of work and I know I've added some of it Kelly has 80 to 90 pages it's going to be a cost involved so I don't know I have not been approached yet so I'm not sure what to tell you how that lands in the budget yeah right now I don't know I haven't heard I move that we move that our meeting to the 12th to the 11th second okay all in favor will you be able to attend that or will we have to if they move it to a Tuesday will you be able to attend on a Tuesday um tight because that's Stephanie then so just let me know let's let me know if you can I'll take the minutes so what about the fall week and then it's so the second four so it works out okay for the 24 Thanksgiving okay that works out good what if you look ahead Chris do you have December in there just since we're talking about it do you have any issues with the holidays for December how that works for the second and fourth or the ninth and the 23rd that's fine that's the first year we normally have to move it around the end of December it becomes a challenge so then we'll add some extra meetings though for budgets meetings um last year we added an extra we haven't in the past but not to say that we won't if we get behind or something like that I'll have stuff for the next meeting so um I'll have a few departments for the next meeting so you know my barrier but if not it might be something throwing theirs to do one and that would be the only thing on the agenda so we'll take a peek at it but um I'm going to set up a meeting with the fire department fire, listers, clerk, municipal so I'll be able to work out quite a bit of the general fund so I think normally in the past we started off with what public works I'm not sure we started off with public works right roll that out and then and then we get into fire, constable we're not going to start with public works this year I'm excited already I can just for me to get stuff ready for the next meeting is going to be more of the general fund budget and then I can that will buy me a little bit of time I can because that's you know, lister, municipal I mean it's a big chunk of the budget so I can get that fire and stuff I think for the next one and um so then I'll sit down for now I did want to say too that Mo and Mo, AJ and Jason had attended a training and I'm going to give you some of that um it was kind of to print me out the material Alan had taken at last year I think so um there was good information about salt versus sand and I read it um last night and had made some notes so there are some pieces of it not the entire you know presentation but there are some sections of it that I thought would be interesting especially because we've had this conversation about less salt more sand and this gentleman in this presentation you could speak to that Mo had some interesting things to say about that um while we certainly had some more gravel than pavement um and there's still room for us to probably save money and salt but some of the tips about wetting the salt and things like that and certainly calibrating the equipment and things so I actually have a meeting with a road crew on Wednesday so you've got to calibrate to one speed and stick with that speed not 40 or 30 right exactly and the presentation was really like a PowerPoint presentation but it was really interesting like I said I read it last night I have a meeting with the road crew um on Wednesday at 9 so I'm going to go over some of this again with them and I talked to the road foreman today about changing routes and that the expectation is that you know Camp Brook will not be cloud with one ton and so we're going to be changing up some routes and so we'll have a we have set aside time on Wednesday to meet with the road crew so we went to what it dealt mostly with payment salt it was very little on the ground but he had some good suggestions there too yeah and then the salt stuff was really interesting too I thought and um AJ had you know he had told me about it you had told me about it and then so I said hey you want to AJ's like yeah I'll print it out for you and then I said and then once I saw some really there was some interesting charts in there that I talked about I said oh I definitely will give some of this to the slide board so um you're not going to be here for one meeting but I'll make sure it's the meeting that you're here for so that would be great can I ask a quick budget question from my other role as the library sure um I think that the library is supposed to submit a letter or a request or something to okay is there a timeline for which that needs to get to you um it would be you know early December would be great okay I love because that's really that's just for their appropriation right yes yeah that's what I thought well then that's well they don't come in front of your committee right they're just part of the budget so yeah as soon as you can get it to me it would be lovely and um then we can do that and and um we've already started talking a little bit about town report and Kelly has already um started working on that a little bit okay so great I see you down to sign up for another 30 years hahahaha and a discount too put it here it's a little better that's funny I'll leave it I'll enjoy your retirement yes thank you for all the good years we've got thank you for all the good years we've got thank you for all the good years we've got it's actually good we've got everybody to get them to sign it I think so yeah alright is there anything else to come before the board I know we've been seems like every Monday we've been here so I would entertain a motion to adjourn